


It Takes All Kinds

by My_Dear_Watson



Series: I Bet My Life [1]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-07 01:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3154877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Dear_Watson/pseuds/My_Dear_Watson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boone contemplates the post-holiday season in the form of his newly established protectiveness over the Courier and the meaning behind her belated birthday gift to him. The outcome and solution aren't at all things he's thrilled about, but he figures they're both messed up enough that it won't hurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Takes All Kinds

Craig Boone hated his birthday- well, the entire "holiday" season, really.

He liked quiet things: people, situations, endless deserts- they were all predictable and calming. They never made a situation get out of hand. They were everything that his life _wasn't_ after the Courier had dragged him into hers. He had successfully gotten out of her service for a grand total of three months after they won the Battle of Hoover Dam. But Fate had a way of fucking with him, so he was really only slightly surprised when she quite literally stumbled back into his life.

He had  run into her on a mission with some other mercenaries and she was on a solo mission that had gone absolutely wrong. And he meant _absolutely_ , being that she and Rex were running from a Deathclaw Alpha that seemed Hell bent on tearing them to shreds. If he wasn't so busy trying to register the absurdity of the situation he might have even laughed; because _of course_ it was going to be potential life-ending danger she would get herself into without him. He had mentally signed himself back into her company even as he lined up what he knew was going to be the first of many headshots to kill the damned creature. He had seen it collapse and immediately ran to her. Apparently he had saved her with mere seconds to spare, because she had taken a dive to the ground to try and line up a shot of her own. He touched her shoulder, and not having seen him, she was instantaneously a mess. She shrieked and clawed at his hand and he swung himself into her vision and told her to snap out of it. She visibly registered his face, looked back at the Deathclaw, then back to him and broke into hysterical laughter that bordered on maniacal. He took a bit of comfort in knowing that it was hysterical over the nerves from almost dying more than actually finding the whole thing hilarious. She immediately bolted into a sitting position in order to hug him, and he didn't have the heart to push her away. He rubbed her back until he felt her breathing go back to normal, let her up, and asked where they were going next. The mercenaries had been apprehensive about losing their best shot, but when they saw the 'hot piece of ass' he was leaving them for, they had supposedly understood. That said, he almost let her attack them when she had heard what they had reduced her to. Hours later they were on the road to an old Brotherhood bunker because MacNamara needed a favor. 

Not that he didn’t exactly hate the Courier- _Corey, she had insisted being called ages ago- it "sounded like a real name"_ , which _‘she needed, since she didn’t have anything else.’_ She was occasionally his kind of quiet. She got whatever job she needed to do done quickly and efficiently. She was careful in handling whatever fight or dangerous situation she threw herself, him and their companions into _most of the time_. She wasn’t _entirely_ hopeless, and she gave him a purpose, which was something he had been lacking  up until she had snuck up on him in the Dinosaur.

Maybe that was why he had stuck with her for three years after that. These days it was taking odd jobs around the Mojave, taking on stray raiders and other pests, and whatever else any poor settler couldn't do on their own. Not as exciting as their first couple of years together, but again, it was quiet, and that was fine with him. 

But her excitement around the holidays turned her into the exact opposite than what she was normally. She was jittery, she was loud, happy, clingy... she was _infuriating_. Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years- they hadn’t really been celebrated in the world after everything went to Hell, but there were people scattered around who celebrated them just to have something to look forward to. And since she felt guilty for dragging her friends into trouble, Corey was determined to be one of the people who celebrated, even if it was just to crowd people into one place and make a giant decent meal for all of them from non-contaminated food she had been hoarding or had Victor order from a bunch of sources.

His and Sunny Smiles’ birthdays were within a week of each other in mid-January, so that mood continued into that next year.

But that year, something had changed. Corey’s excitement was more welcome as far as he was concerned. He wasn’t sure why. But where the excitement was welcome, other things weren’t and that perplexed him even more. He had first noticed it when Corey had talked The King into hosting a Christmas party for her crew.

Before the party itself, Arcade had playfully whined that he was Jewish and wasn’t fond of the King so he had no issue politely declining to attend, until they got some booze in him. Within an hour he was partying with the rest and had been belting out Good King Wenceslas with one of the King’s older, classier looking friends. Boone himself had settled in the corner with a beer, just watching everyone. And then _it_ happened when he saw the King ask Corey for a dance. He knew jealousy when he felt it, but it was so out of left field that he didn’t know how to react.  And it was there tenfold when the King got a certain laugh out of Corey that he had never even heard _in passing_. It was new, different, carefree. He hadn't even heard her use it in response to the jokes that Victor cracked that she loved. He suddenly hated the King more than usual.

Part of it was his own damn fault. He wasn’t stupid. He knew she had taken a shine to him. It was a foolish, misguided shine, but a shine all the same. He had caught the extra looks, the quick, forced out responses that she tried to save herself with if she had done something that upset him and he called her out on it. He had seen her come to his aid quicker than the others in a fight. Granted, it was only a couple of moments' difference. She wasn’t  _that_ selective, let alone shallow, but it was enough to be noticeable.  He was grateful that she kept whatever crush it was under wraps, apparently for his benefit. 

But the latest development complicated things. He wanted to confront her, but he didn't know how. Unless he went with her approach of beating around the bush while also shaking the Hell out of it, which wasn't his style. He knew if he called her out, then things were bound to get awkward. Maybe even just as awkward if something did come of it, and then something went wrong afterward. He was overthinking it, that much was certain.

He figured both of them would be better off with the “if nothing happened”, so he kept on keeping on for a while.

And it worked at the time, even if his time frame for that decision had only been a matter of days.

But of course, this was the Corey-proclaimed “Team Courier”, so things were bound to go downhill.

They chose to go downhill on his birthday, naturally, in the form of another Deathclaw Alpha. ' _Just how many of those damned things were in a few miles radius of each other?_  ' he remembered thinking bitterly the moment he saw it. Sunny had gotten thrown like a ragdoll, Raul had gotten a scratch to the torso that almost ton him in two, the front of Corey's entire body had gotten shredded from shoulder to hip, and Boone had almost lost an arm to one of its young that had snuck up on him before he had gotten a shot off. He managed to make up for his blunder, pulling his knife from his boot with his good arm and stabbing the Deathclaw right between its eyes. It had taken a lot of struggling and motions that hurt like Hell, but he managed to take down the mother after a few moments and sub-par shots, too. 

They had stumbled over and guided each other to the nearest town and collapsed by the nearest clinic, where they were whisked off and patched up.

Boone was surprised that his friends had survived in general. Even more so when they were walking around, albeit slowly and evidently very sore the very next day. They set up camp just outside the town, then were off the day after that.

A few days later they had met up with Ringo to trade a few things and check in on his business. A while back she had insisted checking in on him was 'the least she could do after saving his life and all.’ She and Ringo had sat extra close at meals after that, muttering and laughing quietly together. Boone went back to hating everything. He admittedly liked Ringo. If it was anybody he would be willing to lose her to ( _she wasn’t his to lose, damn it_ , he reminded himself) it was him. But it didn’t mean he had to like being audience to their flirting.

It got to the point where he and Arcade figured she was going to disappear with Ringo into his house for the night, but alas, she retired with them in the late evening. They had all gathered around a fire for a while, and after a couple of hours, Boone couldn’t ignore the fact that Corey had kept looking at him every so often, then went back to staring at the fire.

The others went to bed one by one, until it was just him and Corey left. And she still kept looking at him. He didn’t want to go the route he was about to, but all of his complicated faults were getting dwarfed by his old mindset. “I can see you staring, you know.”

She gawked at him and he felt a bit bad when she went red. “It’s just… you know, we- I forgot about your birthday because I was too busy almost getting killed…” she pointed out and forced a laugh at her equally forced joke. 

“There’ll be others…” he dismissed. But then again, in their line of work, no one was really sure if they were going to live for that one.

She seemed to think the same, judging by her uneasy look. She fidgeted and he raised an eyebrow at her. “No, it’s not just about the fact that we missed- well, it _is_ about that, I guess, but not _exactly_ that.”

He scoffed good-naturedly at that, and he was a bit relieved when that seemed to undo some of her uneasiness. 

She paused again, then sighed and reached for her bag beside her. She pulled out a small, brown paper-wrapped rectangle. “Birthday present. We’re finally getting around to doing these, you’re the one who’s traveled with me longest, so I figured I might as well start this with you…”she began. “I uh… I found it when I was scouting by Bitter Springs again- that time I told you to stay put in camp because I didn't want to put you through any of that again?" she reminded him. He remembered that conversation a few weeks back. She continued with a heavy sigh, "and I found it and I wasn't sure if I was overstepping if I... I just couldn’t…I figured out the context is kind of morbid, but at the same time it’s not and- I wanted to give it to you sooner but I wasn't sure how you'd take it so it's just been laying around my bag for a while and then recently I decided I couldn't just... hold it back any more, and I’m just gonna stop talking now…”

Boone arched an eyebrow, but ripped open the paper and his heart skipped a beat. It was a framed picture of Carla, from back when she was alive and well and pregnant. He knew that photo. He had it with him during his first trip to Bitter Springs. The photo was heavily faded, but the frame was in good shape. He finally found his breath and voice after a few seconds of choking back both. “How…?”

“It was laying around on the ground under dirt in a tent. I thought- I found it and remembered I'd seen her before, and then I realized who it was,  and thought it could’ve been yours from when you first got there or something, if you dropped it or something... _after the fact_ , or God forbid it was some photo they used when they sold…” she trailed off. “And Doc Mitchell gave me the frame when we were in town for Sunny…” she trailed off again and looked like she was going to vomit.

“Thank you…” Boone forced out after a minute.

She smiled weakly and nodded. “Good. I’m glad you like it. I was… really, really worried about it- whether you would just associate it with the fact that the Legion might’ve taken it, or if you hadn’t thought about her in a while and this brought back the bad mem-“

“It’s fine, Corey. You didn’t have to be. This- it means a lot. And... it's not a bad thing. Promise,” he cut her off.  

She grinned again, then started walking backwards. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I promised Raul I would play a few hands of cards to play before we head out. Happy Birthday, Boone.”

Boone hummed his acknowledgement, then watched as she turned and left. And then the guilt set in. Not only because he had an outlet where Carla was practically watching him get attached to another woman, but also the fact that Corey- the one he knew had misguided feelings for him, had given him a picture of his _dead wife he had been very in love with once upon a time_  as one of the _most sentimental gifts_ _he had received_. It might have even been _the_ most sentimental gift he'd ever received, all things considered. How hard had that been _on her_? He wasn’t leading her on, he knew that she respected his space and feelings _and Carla_. She wouldn’t do it to mess with him. She did cunning, she didn’t do cruel. That whole thing with Benny might have been a touch of both, but that was beside the point. It must’ve taken a lot for her to do that.  And he had barely said ten words to her in thanks. He was an _asshole_. And she did things that played the field way too much, so she was just as much of an asshole. _A selfless-for-the-most-part, too considerate, too kind asshole_. He was in trouble.

And then some other darker side of him started weighing in on everything. He was holding a picture of his dead wife and child. A dead wife and child who had been gone four years, taken way too soon. And they deserved to be remembered and honored. But it had been a long time, and Carla wouldn’t want him to stay stuck in the past.

 _Fuck_. This was at least twenty different kinds of fucked up. Maybe she knew it too, and that was why she was trying to escape like a bat out of Hell. He looked at her retreating back and made a decision. A decision that solidified the fucked up-ness of it all, but a decision all the same. “Core!” he called.The nickname was usually used when people needed her attention in a serious moment, oddly enough, but it did the trick and she stopped and turned back around. He set the picture frame down carefully. He didn't want to condemn every action he did quite yet. He was in front of her in a few strides and all but grabbed her face and had the presence of mind to keep repeating how screwed up what he was going to do was and how it may complicate things in his head before he risked it and kissed her.

She was aptly stunned for a few seconds and only returned it for the last moment before he pulled back. “That is… not at all how I expected that to go,” she admitted, and despite having part of him screaming at himself that it was dumb, Boone had a giant boost of pride that she looked dazed. He had given back the value of her gift that way, anyway.  "And not at all what I was going for, so if-"

“I figured. On both counts."

“I, uh, thought you didn’t like complications.”

“I don’t.”

“Bu-“

“It’s _us_. We’ll…  deal. Whether it’s deciding that this never happened or… figuring out how to prevent Arcade from finding out and blabbing to everyone.”

“I uh… I’d…” she exhaled sharply. “I… think I’d like that.”

He was fairly surprised she leaned up quickly to give him a kiss of her own that he could feel had no force behind it. He realized she was giving him an out, even when he was the one who started up the first one, and he realized with a twist of his stomach that he might actually love the girl- not in a romantic sense just yet, but close to it. She pulled back and smiled weakly before she turned and left, leaving whatever the Hell they were now up in the air and to be discussed later, as planned.

Now they were both some sort of messed up, having taken that particular step that felt like a leap in their relationship when the cause had been something that should’ve rejected the Hell out of that idea.

They were pieces of work. And probably going to Hell. But that last part was a given at this rate, considering their track record.

At least they’d have company on the other side.


End file.
